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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter, Book 2)

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

had turned toward the moon's surface, and was so held by aperpendicular passing through its axis. The attraction, that isto say the weight, had brought about this alteration. The heaviestpart of the projectile inclined toward the invisible disc as if itwould fall upon it.

Was it falling? Were the travelers attaining that much desired end?No. And the observation of a sign-point, quite inexplicable initself, showed Barbicane that his projectile was not nearing themoon, and that it had shifted by following an almost concentric curve.

This point of mark was a luminous brightness, which Nichollsighted suddenly, on the limit of the horizon formed by theblack disc. This point could not be confounded with a star.It was a reddish incandescence which increased by degrees, adecided proof that the projectile was shifting toward it andnot falling normally on the surface of the moon.

"A volcano! it is a volcano in action!" cried Nicholl; "adisemboweling of the interior fires of the moon! That world isnot quite extinguished."

"Yes, an eruption," replied Barbicane, who was carefullystudying the phenomenon through his night glass. "What shouldit be, if not a volcano?"

"But, then," said Michel Ardan, "in order to maintain thatcombustion, there must be air. So the atmosphere does surroundthat part of the moon."

"Perhaps so," replied Barbicane, "but not necessarily.

The volcano, by the decomposition of certain substances, canprovide its own oxygen, and thus throw flames into space. It seemsto me that the deflagration, by the intense brilliancy of thesubstances in combustion, is produced in pure oxygen. We mustnot be in a hurry to proclaim the existence of a lunar atmosphere."

The fiery mountain must have been situated about the 45@ southlatitude on the invisible part of the disc; but, to Barbicane'sgreat displeasure, the curve which the projectile was describingwas taking it far from the point indicated by the eruption.Thus he could not determine its nature exactly. Half an hourafter being sighted, this luminous point had disappeared behindthe dark horizon; but the verification of this phenomenon wasof considerable consequence in their selenographic studies.It proved that all heat had not yet disappeared from the bowelsof this globe; and where heat exists, who can affirm that thevegetable kingdom, nay, even the animal kingdom itself, has notup to this time resisted all destructive influences? The existenceof this volcano in eruption, unmistakably seen by these earthlysavants, would doubtless give rise to many theories favorableto the grave question of the habitability of the moon.

Barbicane allowed himself to be carried away by these reflections.He forgot himself in a deep reverie in which the mysteriousdestiny of the lunar world was uppermost. He was seeking tocombine together the facts observed up to that time, when a newincident recalled him briskly to reality. This incident was morethan a cosmical phenomenon; it was a threatened danger, theconsequence of which might be disastrous in the extreme.

Suddenly, in the midst of the ether, in the profound darkness, anenormous mass appeared. It was like a moon, but an incandescentmoon whose brilliancy was all the more intolerable as it cutsharply on the frightful darkness of space. This mass, of acircular form, threw a light which filled the projectile.The forms of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan, bathed inits white sheets, assumed that livid spectral appearance whichphysicians produce with the fictitious light of alcoholimpregnated with salt.

This shooting globe suddenly appearing in shadow at a distanceof at most 200 miles, ought, according to Barbicane, to have adiameter of 2,000 yards. It advanced at a speed of about onemile and a half per second. It cut the projectile's path andmust reach it in some minutes. As it approached it grew toenormous proportions.

Imagine, if possible, the situation of the travelers! It isimpossible to describe it. In spite of their courage, theirsang-froid, their carelessness of danger, they were mute,motionless with stiffened limbs, a prey to frightful terror.Their projectile, the course of which they could not alter, wasrushing straight on this ignited mass, more intense than theopen mouth of an oven. It seemed as though they were beingprecipitated toward an abyss of fire.

Barbicane had seized the hands of his two companions, and allthree looked through their half-open eyelids upon that asteroidheated to a white heat. If thought was not destroyed withinthem, if their brains still worked amid all this awe, they musthave given themselves up for lost.

Two minutes after the sudden appearance of the meteor (to themtwo centuries of anguish) the projectile seemed almost about tostrike it, when the globe of fire burst like a bomb, but withoutmaking any noise in that void where sound, which is but theagitation of the layers of air, could not be generated.

Nicholl uttered a cry, and he and his companions rushed tothe scuttle. What a sight! What pen can describe it?What palette is rich enough in colors to reproduce so magnificenta spectacle?

It was like the opening of a crater, like the scattering of animmense conflagration. Thousands of luminous fragments lit upand irradiated space with their fires. Every size, every color,was there intermingled. There were rays of yellow and paleyellow, red, green, gray-- a crown of fireworks of all colors.Of the enormous and much-dreaded globe there remained nothingbut these fragments carried in all directions, now becomeasteroids in their turn, some flaming like a sword, somesurrounded by a whitish cloud, and others leaving behind themtrains of brilliant cosmical dust.

These incandescent blocks crossed and struck each other,scattering still smaller fragments, some of which struckthe projectile. Its left scuttle was even cracked by aviolent shock. It seemed to be floating amid a hail ofhowitzer shells, the smallest of which might destroyit instantly.

The light which saturated the ether was so wonderfully intense,that Michel, drawing Barbicane and Nicholl to his window,exclaimed, "The invisible moon, visible at last!"

And through a luminous emanation, which lasted some seconds, thewhole three caught a glimpse of that mysterious disc which the eyeof man now saw for the first time. What could they distinguishat a distance which they could not estimate? Some lengthenedbands along the disc, real clouds formed in the midst of a veryconfined atmosphere, from which emerged not only all the mountains,but also projections of less importance; its circles, its yawningcraters, as capriciously placed as on the visible surface.Then immense spaces, no longer arid plains, but real seas, oceans,widely distributed, reflecting on their liquid surface all thedazzling magic of the fires of space; and, lastly, on the surfaceof the continents, large dark masses, looking like immense forestsunder the rapid illumination of a brilliance.

Was it an illusion, a mistake, an optical illusion? Could theygive a scientific assent to an observation so superficially obtained?Dared they pronounce upon the question of its habitability afterso slight a glimpse of the invisible disc?

But the lightnings in space subsided by degrees; its accidentalbrilliancy died away; the asteroids dispersed in differentdirections and were extinguished in the distance.

The ether returned to its accustomed darkness; the stars, eclipsedfor a moment, again twinkled in the firmament, and the disc, sohastily discerned, was again buried in impenetrable night.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

The projectile had just escaped a terrible danger, and a veryunforseen one. Who would have thought of such an encounterwith meteors? These erring bodies might create serious perilsfor the travelers. They were to them so many sandbanks uponthat sea of ether which, less fortunate than sailors, they couldnot escape. But did these adventurers complain of space? No, notsince nature had given them the splendid sight of a cosmicalmeteor bursting from expansion, since this inimitable firework,which no Ruggieri could imitate, had lit up for some seconds theinvisible glory of the moon. In that flash, continents, seas,and forests had become visible to them. Did an atmosphere,then, bring to this unknown face its life-giving atoms?Questions still insoluble, and forever closed againsthuman curiousity!

It was then half-past three in the afternoon. The projectilewas following its curvilinear direction round the moon. Had itscourse again been altered by the meteor? It was to be feared so.But the projectile must describe a curve unalterably determinedby the laws of mechanical reasoning. Barbicane was inclined tobelieve that this curve would be rather a parabola than a hyperbola.But admitting the parabola, the projectile must quickly havepassed through the cone of shadow projected into space oppositethe sun. This cone, indeed, is very narrow, the angular diameterof the moon being so little when compared with the diameter ofthe orb of day; and up to this time the projectile had beenfloating in this deep shadow. Whatever had been its speed(and it could not have been insignificant), its period ofoccultation continued. That was evident, but perhaps that wouldnot have been the case in a supposedly rigidly parabolicaltrajectory-- a new problem which tormented Barbicane's brain,imprisoned as he was in a circle of unknowns which he couldnot unravel.

Neither of the travelers thought of taking an instant's repose.Each one watched for an unexpected fact, which might throw somenew light on their uranographic studies. About five o'clock,Michel Ardan distributed, under the name of dinner, some piecesof bread and cold meat, which were quickly swallowed withouteither of them abandoning their scuttle, the glass of which wasincessantly encrusted by the condensation of vapor.

About forty-five minutes past five in the evening, Nicholl,armed with his glass, sighted toward the southern border of themoon, and in the direction followed by the projectile, somebright points cut upon the dark shield of the sky. They lookedlike a succession of sharp points lengthened into a tremulous line.They were very bright. Such appeared the terminal line of themoon when in one of her octants.

They could not be mistaken. It was no longer a simple meteor.This luminous ridge had neither color nor motion. Nor was it avolcano in eruption. And Barbicane did not hesitate topronounce upon it.

"The sun!" he exclaimed.

"What! the sun?" answered Nicholl and Michel Ardan.

"Yes, my friends, it is the radiant orb itself lighting up thesummit of the mountains situated on the southern borders ofthe moon. We are evidently nearing the south pole."

"After having passed the north pole," replied Michel. "We havemade the circuit of our satellite, then?"

"Yes, my good Michel."

"Then, no more hyperbolas, no more parabolas, no more opencurves to fear?"

"No, but a closed curve."

"Which is called----"

"An ellipse. Instead of losing itself in interplanetary space,it is probable that the projectile will describe an ellipticalorbit around the moon."

"Indeed!"

"And that it will become her satellite."

"Moon of the moon!" cried Michel Ardan.

"Only, I would have you observe, my worthy friend," repliedBarbicane, "that we are none the less lost for that."

"Yes, in another manner, and much more pleasantly," answered thecareless Frenchman with his most amiable smile.

CHAPTER XVII

TYCHO

At six in the evening the projectile passed the south pole atless than forty miles off, a distance equal to that alreadyreached at the north pole. The elliptical curve was beingrigidly carried out.

At this moment the travelers once more entered the blessed raysof the sun. They saw once more those stars which move slowlyfrom east to west. The radiant orb was saluted by a triple hurrah.With its light it also sent heat, which soon pierced the metal walls.The glass resumed its accustomed appearance. The layers of icemelted as if by enchantment; and immediately, for economy's sake,the gas was put out, the air apparatus alone consuming itsusual quantity.

"Ah!" said Nicholl, "these rays of heat are good. With whatimpatience must the Selenites wait the reappearance of the orbof day."

"Yes," replied Michel Ardan, "imbibing as it were the brilliantether, light and heat, all life is contained in them."

At this moment the bottom of the projectile deviated somewhatfrom the lunar surface, in order to follow the slightlylengthened elliptical orbit. From this point, had the earthbeen at the full, Barbicane and his companions could haveseen it, but immersed in the sun's irradiation she wasquite invisible. Another spectacle attracted their attention,that of the southern part of the moon, brought by the glassesto within 450 yards. They did not again leave the scuttles,and noted every detail of this fantastical continent.

Mounts Doerful and Leibnitz formed two separate groups very nearthe south pole. The first group extended from the pole to theeighty-fourth parallel, on the eastern part of the orb; thesecond occupied the eastern border, extending from the 65@ oflatitude to the pole.

On their capriciously formed ridge appeared dazzling sheets, asmentioned by Pere Secchi. With more certainty than theillustrious Roman astronomer, Barbicane was enabled to recognizetheir nature.

"They are snow," he exclaimed.

"Snow?" repeated Nicholl.

"Yes, Nicholl, snow; the surface of which is deeply frozen.See how they reflect the luminous rays. Cooled lava would nevergive out such intense reflection. There must then be water,there must be air on the moon. As little as you please, but thefact can no longer be contested." No, it could not be. And ifever Barbicane should see the earth again, his notes will bearwitness to this great fact in his selenographic observations.

These mountains of Doerful and Leibnitz rose in the midst ofplains of a medium extent, which were bounded by an indefinitesuccession of circles and annular ramparts. These two chainsare the only ones met with in this region of circles.Comparatively but slightly marked, they throw up here and theresome sharp points, the highest summit of which attains analtitude of 24,600 feet.

But the projectile was high above all this landscape, and theprojections disappeared in the intense brilliancy of the disc.And to the eyes of the travelers there reappeared that originalaspect of the lunar landscapes, raw in tone, without gradationof colors, and without degrees of shadow, roughly black andwhite, from the want of diffusion of light.

But the sight of this desolate world did not fail to captivatethem by its very strangeness. They were moving over this regionas if they had been borne on the breath of some storm, watchingheights defile under their feet, piercing the cavities with theireyes, going down into the rifts, climbing the ramparts, soundingthese mysterious holes, and leveling all cracks. But no traceof vegetation, no appearance of cities; nothing but stratification,beds of lava, overflowings polished like immense mirrors,reflecting the sun's rays with overpowering brilliancy.Nothing belonging to a living world-- everything to a deadworld, where avalanches, rolling from the summits of the mountains,would disperse noiselessly at the bottom of the abyss, retainingthe motion, but wanting the sound. In any case it was the imageof death, without its being possible even to say that life had everexisted there.

Michel Ardan, however, thought he recognized a heap of ruins,to which he drew Barbicane's attention. It was about the 80thparallel, in 30@ longitude. This heap of stones, ratherregularly placed, represented a vast fortress, overlooking along rift, which in former days had served as a bed to therivers of prehistorical times. Not far from that, rose to aheight of 17,400 feet the annular mountain of Short, equal tothe Asiatic Caucasus. Michel Ardan, with his accustomed ardor,maintained "the evidences" of his fortress. Beneath it hediscerned the dismantled ramparts of a town; here the stillintact arch of a portico, there two or three columns lying undertheir base; farther on, a succession of arches which must havesupported the conduit of an aqueduct; in another part the sunkenpillars of a gigantic bridge, run into the thickest parts ofthe rift. He distinguished all this, but with so much imaginationin his glance, and through glasses so fantastical, that we mustmistrust his observation. But who could affirm, who would dareto say, that the amiable fellow did not really see that whichhis two companions would not see?

Moments were too precious to be sacrificed in idle discussion.The selenite city, whether imaginary or not, had alreadydisappeared afar off. The distance of the projectile from thelunar disc was on the increase, and the details of the soil werebeing lost in a confused jumble. The reliefs, the circles,the craters, and the plains alone remained, and still showedtheir boundary lines distinctly. At this moment, to the left,lay extended one of the finest circles of lunar orography,one of the curiosities of this continent. It was Newton,which Barbicane recognized without trouble, by referring tothe Mappa Selenographica.

Newton is situated in exactly 77@ south latitude, and 16@east longitude. It forms an annular crater, the ramparts ofwhich, rising to a height of 21,300 feet, seemed to be impassable.

Barbicane made his companions observe that the height of thismountain above the surrounding plain was far from equaling thedepth of its crater. This enormous hole was beyond allmeasurement, and formed a gloomy abyss, the bottom of which thesun's rays could never reach. There, according to Humboldt,reigns utter darkness, which the light of the sun and the earthcannot break. Mythologists could well have made it the mouth of hell.

"Newton," said Barbicane, "is the most perfect type of theseannular mountains, of which the earth possesses no sample.They prove that the moon's formation, by means of cooling, isdue to violent causes; for while, under the pressure of internalfires the reliefs rise to considerable height, the depths withdrawfar below the lunar level."

"I do not dispute the fact," replied Michel Ardan.

Some minutes after passing Newton, the projectile directlyoverlooked the annular mountains of Moret. It skirted at somedistance the summits of Blancanus, and at about half-past sevenin the evening reached the circle of Clavius.

This circle, one of the most remarkable of the disc, is situatedin 58@ south latitude, and 15@ east longitude. Its height isestimated at 22,950 feet. The travelers, at a distance oftwenty-four miles (reduced to four by their glasses) couldadmire this vast crater in its entirety.

"Terrestrial volcanoes," said Barbicane, "are but mole-hillscompared with those of the moon. Measuring the old cratersformed by the first eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna, we find themlittle more than three miles in breadth. In France the circleof Cantal measures six miles across; at Ceyland the circle ofthe island is forty miles, which is considered the largest onthe globe. What are these diameters against that of Clavius,which we overlook at this moment?"

"What is its breadth?" asked Nicholl.

"It is 150 miles," replied Barbicane. "This circle is certainlythe most important on the moon, but many others measure 150,100, or 75 miles."

"Ah! my friends," exclaimed Michel, "can you picture toyourselves what this now peaceful orb of night must have beenwhen its craters, filled with thunderings, vomited at the sametime smoke and tongues of flame. What a wonderful spectaclethen, and now what decay! This moon is nothing more than a thincarcase of fireworks, whose squibs, rockets, serpents, and suns,after a superb brilliancy, have left but sadly broken cases.Who can say the cause, the reason, the motive force ofthese cataclysms?"

Barbicane was not listening to Michel Ardan; he wascontemplating these ramparts of Clavius, formed by largemountains spread over several miles. At the bottom of theimmense cavity burrowed hundreds of small extinguished craters,riddling the soil like a colander, and overlooked by a peak15,000 feet high.

Around the plain appeared desolate. Nothing so arid as thesereliefs, nothing so sad as these ruins of mountains, and (if wemay so express ourselves) these fragments of peaks and mountainswhich strewed the soil. The satellite seemed to have burst atthis spot.

The projectile was still advancing, and this movement didnot subside. Circles, craters, and uprooted mountains succeededeach other incessantly. No more plains; no more seas. A neverending Switzerland and Norway. And lastly, in the canter ofthis region of crevasses, the most splendid mountain on thelunar disc, the dazzling Tycho, in which posterity will everpreserve the name of the illustrious Danish astronomer.

In observing the full moon in a cloudless sky no one has failedto remark this brilliant point of the southern hemisphere.Michel Ardan used every metaphor that his imagination couldsupply to designate it by. To him this Tycho was a focus oflight, a center of irradiation, a crater vomiting rays. It wasthe tire of a brilliant wheel, an asteria enclosing the discwith its silver tentacles, an enormous eye filled with flames,a glory carved for Pluto's head, a star launched by theCreator's hand, and crushed against the face of the moon!

Tycho forms such a concentration of light that the inhabitantsof the earth can see it without glasses, though at a distanceof 240,000 miles! Imagine, then, its intensity to the eye ofobservers placed at a distance of only fifty miles! Seen throughthis pure ether, its brilliancy was so intolerable that Barbicaneand his friends were obliged to blacken their glasses with the gassmoke before they could bear the splendor. Then silent, scarcelyuttering an interjection of admiration, they gazed, they contemplated.All their feelings, all their impressions, were concentrated in thatlook, as under any violent emotion all life is concentrated at the heart.

Tycho belongs to the system of radiating mountains, likeAristarchus and Copernicus; but it is of all the most completeand decided, showing unquestionably the frightful volcanicaction to which the formation of the moon is due. Tycho issituated in 43@ south latitude, and 12@ east longitude. Its centeris occupied by a crater fifty miles broad. It assumes a slightlyelliptical form, and is surrounded by an enclosure of annularramparts, which on the east and west overlook the outer plain froma height of 15,000 feet. It is a group of Mont Blancs, placedround one common center and crowned by radiating beams.

What this incomparable mountain really is, with all theprojections converging toward it, and the interior excrescencesof its crater, photography itself could never represent.Indeed, it is during the full moon that Tycho is seen in allits splendor. Then all shadows disappear, the foreshorteningof perspective disappears, and all proofs become white-- adisagreeable fact: for this strange region would have beenmarvelous if reproduced with photographic exactness. It isbut a group of hollows, craters, circles, a network of crests;then, as far as the eye could see, a whole volcanic networkcast upon this encrusted soil. One can then understand thatthe bubbles of this central eruption have kept their first form.Crystallized by cooling, they have stereotyped that aspectwhich the moon formerly presented when under the Plutonian forces.

The distance which separated the travelers from the annularsummits of Tycho was not so great but that they could catchthe principal details. Even on the causeway forming thefortifications of Tycho, the mountains hanging on to theinterior and exterior sloping flanks rose in stories likegigantic terraces. They appeared to be higher by 300 or 400feet to the west than to the east. No system of terrestrialencampment could equal these natural fortifications. A townbuilt at the bottom of this circular cavity would have beenutterly inaccessible.

Inaccessible and wonderfully extended over this soil coveredwith picturesque projections! Indeed, nature had not left thebottom of this crater flat and empty. It possessed its ownpeculiar orography, a mountainous system, making it a worldin itself. The travelers could distinguish clearly cones,central hills, remarkable positions of the soil, naturallyplaced to receive the chefs-d'oeuvre of Selenite architecture.There was marked out the place for a temple, here the ground of aforum, on this spot the plan of a palace, in another the plateaufor a citadel; the whole overlooked by a central mountain of1,500 feet. A vast circle, in which ancient Rome could havebeen held in its entirety ten times over.

"Ah!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, enthusiastic at the sight; "whata grand town might be constructed within that ring of mountains!A quiet city, a peaceful refuge, beyond all human misery. How calmand isolated those misanthropes, those haters of humanity mightlive there, and all who have a distaste for social life!"

"All! It would be too small for them," replied Barbicane simply.

CHAPTER XVIII

GRAVE QUESTIONS

But the projectile had passed the enceinte of Tycho, andBarbicane and his two companions watched with scrupulousattention the brilliant rays which the celebrated mountain shedso curiously over the horizon.

What was this radiant glory? What geological phenomenon haddesigned these ardent beams? This question occupied Barbicane's mind.

Under his eyes ran in all directions luminous furrows, raised atthe edges and concave in the center, some twelve miles, othersthirty miles broad. These brilliant trains extended in someplaces to within 600 miles of Tycho, and seemed to cover,particularly toward the east, the northeast and the north, thehalf of the southern hemisphere. One of these jets extended asfar as the circle of Neander, situated on the 40th meridian.Another, by a slight curve, furrowed the "Sea of Nectar," breakingagainst the chain of Pyrenees, after a circuit of 800 miles.Others, toward the west, covered the "Sea of Clouds" andthe "Sea of Humors" with a luminous network. What was theorigin of these sparkling rays, which shone on the plains aswell as on the reliefs, at whatever height they might be?All started from a common center, the crater of Tycho.They sprang from him. Herschel attributed their brilliancy tocurrents of lava congealed by the cold; an opinion, however,which has not been generally adopted. Other astronomers haveseen in these inexplicable rays a kind of moraines, rows oferratic blocks, which had been thrown up at the period ofTycho's formation.

"And why not?" asked Nicholl of Barbicane, who was relating andrejecting these different opinions.

"Because the regularity of these luminous lines, and theviolence necessary to carry volcanic matter to such distances,is inexplicable."

"Indeed," continued Michel. "It is enough to say that it is avast star, similar to that produced by a ball or a stone thrownat a square of glass!"

"Well!" replied Barbicane, smiling. "And what hand would bepowerful enough to throw a ball to give such a shock as that?"

"The hand is not necessary," answered Nicholl, not at allconfounded; "and as to the stone, let us suppose it to be a comet."

"Ah! those much-abused comets!" exclaimed Barbicane. "My braveMichel, your explanation is not bad; but your comet is useless.The shock which produced that rent must have some from theinside of the star. A violent contraction of the lunar crust,while cooling, might suffice to imprint this gigantic star."

"Besides," added Barbicane, "this opinion is that of an Englishsavant, Nasmyth, and it seems to me to sufficiently explain theradiation of these mountains."

"That Nasmyth was no fool!" replied Michel.

Long did the travelers, whom such a sight could never weary,admire the splendors of Tycho. Their projectile, saturated withluminous gleams in the double irradiation of sun and moon, musthave appeared like an incandescent globe. They had passedsuddenly from excessive cold to intense heat. Nature was thuspreparing them to become Selenites. Become Selenites! That ideabrought up once more the question of the habitability of the moon.After what they had seen, could the travelers solve it? Would theydecide for or against it? Michel Ardan persuaded his two friendsto form an opinion, and asked them directly if they thought thatmen and animals were represented in the lunar world.

"I think that we can answer," said Barbicane; "but according tomy idea the question ought not to be put in that form. I ask itto be put differently."

"Put it your own way," replied Michel.

"Here it is," continued Barbicane. "The problem is a double one,and requires a double solution. Is the moon habitable? Has themoon ever been inhabitable?"

"And I answer in the negative," continued Barbicane. "In heractual state, with her surrounding atmosphere certainly verymuch reduced, her seas for the most part dried up, herinsufficient supply of water restricted, vegetation, suddenalternations of cold and heat, her days and nights of 354hours-- the moon does not seem habitable to me, nor does sheseem propitious to animal development, nor sufficient for thewants of existence as we understand it."

"That question is more difficult to answer, but I will try; andI ask Nicholl if motion appears to him to be a necessaryresult of life, whatever be its organization?"

"Without a doubt!" answered Nicholl.

"Then, my worthy companion, I would answer that we have observedthe lunar continent at a distance of 500 yards at most, and thatnothing seemed to us to move on the moon's surface. The presenceof any kind of life would have been betrayed by its attendant marks,such as divers buildings, and even by ruins. And what havewe seen? Everywhere and always the geological works of nature,never the work of man. If, then, there exist representativesof the animal kingdom on the moon, they must have fled to thoseunfathomable cavities which the eye cannot reach; which I cannotadmit, for they must have left traces of their passage on thoseplains which the atmosphere must cover, however slightly raisedit may be. These traces are nowhere visible. There remains butone hypothesis, that of a living race to which motion, which islife, is foreign."

"One might as well say, living creatures which do not live,"replied Michel.

"Just so," said Barbicane, "which for us has no meaning."

"Then we may form our opinion?" said Michel.

"Yes," replied Nicholl.

"Very well," continued Michel Ardan, "the Scientific Commissionassembled in the projectile of the Gun Club, after havingfounded their argument on facts recently observed, decideunanimously upon the question of the habitability of the moon--`No! the moon is not habitable.'"

This decision was consigned by President Barbicane to hisnotebook, where the process of the sitting of the 6th ofDecember may be seen.

"Now," said Nicholl, "let us attack the second question, anindispensable complement of the first. I ask the honorablecommission, if the moon is not habitable, has she ever beeninhabited, Citizen Barbicane?"

"My friends," replied Barbicane, "I did not undertake thisjourney in order to form an opinion on the past habitability ofour satellite; but I will add that our personal observationsonly confirm me in this opinion. I believe, indeed I affirm,that the moon has been inhabited by a human race organized likeour own; that she has produced animals anatomically formed likethe terrestrial animals: but I add that these races, human andanimal, have had their day, and are now forever extinct!"

"Then," asked Michel, "the moon must be older than the earth?"

"No!" said Barbicane decidedly, "but a world which has grown oldquicker, and whose formation and deformation have been more rapid.Relatively, the organizing force of matter has been much moreviolent in the interior of the moon than in the interior of theterrestrial globe. The actual state of this cracked, twisted,and burst disc abundantly proves this. The moon and the earthwere nothing but gaseous masses originally. These gases havepassed into a liquid state under different influences, and thesolid masses have been formed later. But most certainly oursphere was still gaseous or liquid, when the moon was solidifiedby cooling, and had become habitable."

"I believe it," said Nicholl.

"Then," continued Barbicane, "an atmosphere surrounded it, thewaters contained within this gaseous envelope could not evaporate.Under the influence of air, water, light, solar heat, and centralheat, vegetation took possession of the continents prepared toreceive it, and certainly life showed itself about this period,for nature does not expend herself in vain; and a world sowonderfully formed for habitation must necessarily be inhabited."

"But," said Nicholl, "many phenomena inherent in our satellitemight cramp the expansion of the animal and vegetable kingdom.For example, its days and nights of 354 hours?"

"At the terrestrial poles they last six months," said Michel.

"An argument of little value, since the poles are not inhabited."

"Let us observe, my friends," continued Barbicane, "that if inthe actual state of the moon its long nights and long dayscreated differences of temperature insupportable toorganization, it was not so at the historical period of time.The atmosphere enveloped the disc with a fluid mantle; vapordeposited itself in the shape of clouds; this natural screentempered the ardor of the solar rays, and retained thenocturnal radiation. Light, like heat, can diffuse itself inthe air; hence an equality between the influences which no longerexists, now that atmosphere has almost entirely disappeared.And now I am going to astonish you."

"Astonish us?" said Michel Ardan.

"I firmly believe that at the period when the moon was inhabited,the nights and days did not last 354 hours!"

"And why?" asked Nicholl quickly.

"Because most probably then the rotary motion of the moon uponher axis was not equal to her revolution, an equality whichpresents each part of her disc during fifteen days to the actionof the solar rays."

"Granted," replied Nicholl, "but why should not these twomotions have been equal, as they are really so?"

"Because that equality has only been determined byterrestrial attraction. And who can say that this attractionwas powerful enough to alter the motion of the moon at thatperiod when the earth was still fluid?"

"Just so," replied Nicholl; "and who can say that the moon hasalways been a satellite of the earth?"

"And who can say," exclaimed Michel Ardan, "that the moon didnot exist before the earth?"

Their imaginations carried them away into an indefinite fieldof hypothesis. Barbicane sought to restrain them.

"Those speculations are too high," said he; "problemsutterly insoluble. Do not let us enter upon them. Let us onlyadmit the insufficiency of the primordial attraction; and thenby the inequality of the two motions of rotation and revolution,the days and nights could have succeeded each other on the moonas they succeed each other on the earth. Besides, even withoutthese conditions, life was possible."

"Yes," replied Barbicane, "after having doubtless remainedpersistently for millions of centuries; by degrees theatmosphere becoming rarefied, the disc became uninhabitable, asthe terrestrial globe will one day become by cooling."

"By cooling?"

"Certainly," replied Barbicane; "as the internal fires becameextinguished, and the incandescent matter concentrated itself,the lunar crust cooled. By degrees the consequences of thesephenomena showed themselves in the disappearance of organizedbeings, and by the disappearance of vegetation. Soon theatmosphere was rarefied, probably withdrawn by terrestrialattraction; then aerial departure of respirable air, anddisappearance of water by means of evaporation. At this periodthe moon becoming uninhabitable, was no longer inhabited.It was a dead world, such as we see it to-day."

"And you say that the same fate is in store for the earth?"

"Most probably."

"But when?"

"When the cooling of its crust shall have made it uninhabitable."

"And have they calculated the time which our unfortunate spherewill take to cool?"

"Very well, my good Michel," replied Barbicane quietly; "we knowwhat diminution of temperature the earth undergoes in the lapseof a century. And according to certain calculations, this meantemperature will after a period of 400,000 years, be broughtdown to zero!"

"Four hundred thousand years!" exclaimed Michel. "Ah! Ibreathe again. Really I was frightened to hear you; I imaginedthat we had not more than 50,000 years to live."

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at theircompanion's uneasiness. Then Nicholl, who wished to end thediscussion, put the second question, which had just beenconsidered again.

"Has the moon been inhabited?" he asked.

The answer was unanimously in the affirmative. But during thisdiscussion, fruitful in somewhat hazardous theories, theprojectile was rapidly leaving the moon: the lineaments fadedaway from the travelers' eyes, mountains were confused in thedistance; and of all the wonderful, strange, and fantasticalform of the earth's satellite, there soon remained nothing butthe imperishable remembrance.

CHAPTER XIX

A STRUGGLE AGAINST THE IMPOSSIBLE

For a long time Barbicane and his companions looked silently andsadly upon that world which they had only seen from a distance,as Moses saw the land of Canaan, and which they were leavingwithout a possibility of ever returning to it. The projectile'sposition with regard to the moon had altered, and the base wasnow turned to the earth.

This change, which Barbicane verified, did not fail to surprise them.If the projectile was to gravitate round the satellite in anelliptical orbit, why was not its heaviest part turned toward it,as the moon turns hers to the earth? That was a difficult point.

In watching the course of the projectile they could see that onleaving the moon it followed a course analogous to that tracedin approaching her. It was describing a very long ellipse,which would most likely extend to the point of equal attraction,where the influences of the earth and its satellite are neutralized.

Such was the conclusion which Barbicane very justly drew fromfacts already observed, a conviction which his two friendsshared with him.

"And when arrived at this dead point, what will become of us?"asked Michel Ardan.

"We don't know," replied Barbicane.

"But one can draw some hypotheses, I suppose?"

"Two," answered Barbicane; "either the projectile's speed willbe insufficient, and it will remain forever immovable on thisline of double attraction----"

"I prefer the other hypothesis, whatever it may be," interrupted Michel.

"Or," continued Barbicane, "its speed will be sufficient, and itwill continue its elliptical course, to gravitate forever aroundthe orb of night."

"A revolution not at all consoling," said Michel, "to pass tothe state of humble servants to a moon whom we are accustomed tolook upon as our own handmaid. So that is the fate in store for us?"

"Yes," continued Michel, getting animated, "or else alter it,and employ it to the accomplishment of our own ends."

"And how?"

"That is your affair. If artillerymen are not masters of theirprojectile they are not artillerymen. If the projectile is tocommand the gunner, we had better ram the gunner into the gun.My faith! fine savants! who do not know what is to become of usafter inducing me----"

"Inducing you!" cried Barbicane and Nicholl. "Inducing you!What do you mean by that?"

"No recrimination," said Michel. "I do not complain, the triphas pleased me, and the projectile agrees with me; but let us doall that is humanly possible to do the fall somewhere, even ifonly on the moon."

"What would you throw out?" said Nicholl. "We have no ballaston board; and indeed it seems to me that if lightened it wouldgo much quicker."

"Slower."

"Quicker."

"Neither slower nor quicker," said Barbicane, wishing to makehis two friends agree; "for we float is space, and must nolonger consider specific weight."

"Very well," cried Michel Ardan in a decided voice; "then theirremains but one thing to do."

"What is it?" asked Nicholl.

"Breakfast," answered the cool, audacious Frenchman, who alwaysbrought up this solution at the most difficult juncture.

In any case, if this operation had no influence on theprojectile's course, it could at least be tried withoutinconvenience, and even with success from a stomachic pointof view. Certainly Michel had none but good ideas.

They breakfasted then at two in the morning; the hour mattered little.Michel served his usual repast, crowned by a glorious bottle drawnfrom his private cellar. If ideas did not crowd on their brains,we must despair of the Chambertin of 1853. The repast finished,observation began again. Around the projectile, at an invariabledistance, were the objects which had been thrown out. Evidently, inits translatory motion round the moon, it had not passed throughany atmosphere, for the specific weight of these different objectswould have checked their relative speed.

On the side of the terrestrial sphere nothing was to be seen.The earth was but a day old, having been new the night before attwelve; and two days must elapse before its crescent, freed fromthe solar rays, would serve as a clock to the Selenites, as inits rotary movement each of its points after twenty-four hoursrepasses the same lunar meridian.

On the moon's side the sight was different; the orb shone in allher splendor amid innumerable constellations, whose purity couldnot be troubled by her rays. On the disc, the plains werealready returning to the dark tint which is seen from the earth.The other part of the nimbus remained brilliant, and in the midstof this general brilliancy Tycho shone prominently like a sun.

Barbicane had no means of estimating the projectile's speed, butreasoning showed that it must uniformly decrease, according tothe laws of mechanical reasoning. Having admitted that theprojectile was describing an orbit around the moon, this orbitmust necessarily be elliptical; science proves that it must be so.No motive body circulating round an attracting body fails inthis law. Every orbit described in space is elliptical. And whyshould the projectile of the Gun Club escape this natural arrangement?In elliptical orbits, the attracting body always occupies one ofthe foci; so that at one moment the satellite is nearer, and atanother farther from the orb around which it gravitates. When theearth is nearest the sun she is in her perihelion; and in heraphelion at the farthest point. Speaking of the moon, she isnearest to the earth in her perigee, and farthest from it inher apogee. To use analogous expressions, with which theastronomers' language is enriched, if the projectile remainsas a satellite of the moon, we must say that it is in its"aposelene" at its farthest point, and in its "periselene" atits nearest. In the latter case, the projectile would attainits maximum of speed; and in the former its minimum. It wasevidently moving toward its aposelenitical point; and Barbicanehad reason to think that its speed would decrease up to thispoint, and then increase by degrees as it neared the moon.This speed would even become nil, if this point joined that ofequal attraction. Barbicane studied the consequences of thesedifferent situations, and thinking what inference he could drawfrom them, when he was roughly disturbed by a cry from Michel Ardan.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I must admit we are down-right simpletons!"

"I do not say we are not," replied Barbicane; "but why?"

"Because we have a very simple means of checking this speedwhich is bearing us from the moon, and we do not use it!"

"And what is the means?"

"To use the recoil contained in our rockets."

"Done!" said Nicholl.

"We have not used this force yet," said Barbicane, "it is true,but we will do so."

"When?" asked Michel.

"When the time comes. Observe, my friends, that in the positionoccupied by the projectile, an oblique position with regard tothe lunar disc, our rockets, in slightly altering its direction,might turn it from the moon instead of drawing it nearer?"

"Just so," replied Michel.

"Let us wait, then. By some inexplicable influence, theprojectile is turning its base toward the earth. It is probablethat at the point of equal attraction, its conical cap will bedirected rigidly toward the moon; at that moment we may hopethat its speed will be nil; then will be the moment to act,and with the influence of our rockets we may perhapsprovoke a fall directly on the surface of the lunar disc."

"Bravo!" said Michel. "What we did not do, what we could not doon our first passage at the dead point, because the projectilewas then endowed with too great a speed."

"Very well reasoned," said Nicholl.

"Let us wait patiently," continued Barbicane. "Putting everychance on our side, and after having so much despaired, I maysay I think we shall gain our end."

This conclusion was a signal for Michel Ardan's hips and hurrahs.And none of the audacious boobies remembered the question thatthey themselves had solved in the negative. No! the moon is notinhabited; no! the moon is probably not habitable. And yet theywere going to try everything to reach her.

One single question remained to be solved. At what precisemoment the projectile would reach the point of equal attraction,on which the travelers must play their last card. In order tocalculate this to within a few seconds, Barbicane had only torefer to his notes, and to reckon the different heights taken onthe lunar parallels. Thus the time necessary to travel over thedistance between the dead point and the south pole would be equalto the distance separating the north pole from the dead point.The hours representing the time traveled over were carefullynoted, and the calculation was easy. Barbicane found that thispoint would be reached at one in the morning on the night of the7th-8th of December. So that, if nothing interfered with itscourse, it would reach the given point in twenty-two hours.

The rockets had primarily been placed to check the fall of theprojectile upon the moon, and now they were going to employ themfor a directly contrary purpose. In any case they were ready,and they had only to wait for the moment to set fire to them.

"Since there is nothing else to be done," said Nicholl, "I makea proposition."

"What is it?" asked Barbicane.

"I propose to go to sleep."

"What a motion!" exclaimed Michel Ardan.

"It is forty hours since we closed our eyes," said Nicholl."Some hours of sleep will restore our strength."

"Never," interrupted Michel.

"Well," continued Nicholl, "every one to his taste; I shall goto sleep." And stretching himself on the divan, he soon snoredlike a forty-eight pounder.

"That Nicholl has a good deal of sense," said Barbicane;"presently I shall follow his example." Some moments after hiscontinued bass supported the captain's baritone.

"Certainly," said Michel Ardan, finding himself alone, "thesepractical people have sometimes most opportune ideas."

And with his long legs stretched out, and his great arms foldedunder his head, Michel slept in his turn.

But this sleep could be neither peaceful nor lasting, the mindsof these three men were too much occupied, and some hours after,about seven in the morning, all three were on foot at the same instant.

The projectile was still leaving the moon, and turning itsconical part more and more toward her.

An explicable phenomenon, but one which happily servedBarbicane's ends.

Seventeen hours more, and the moment for action would have arrived.

The day seemed long. However bold the travelers might be, theywere greatly impressed by the approach of that moment whichwould decide all-- either precipitate their fall on to the moon,or forever chain them in an immutable orbit. They counted thehours as they passed too slow for their wish; Barbicane andNicholl were obstinately plunged in their calculations, Michelgoing and coming between the narrow walls, and watching thatimpassive moon with a longing eye.

At times recollections of the earth crossed their minds. They sawonce more their friends of the Gun Club, and the dearest of all,J. T. Maston. At that moment, the honorable secretary must befilling his post on the Rocky Mountains. If he could see theprojectile through the glass of his gigantic telescope, whatwould he think? After seeing it disappear behind the moon'ssouth pole, he would see them reappear by the north pole!They must therefore be a satellite of a satellite! Had J. T.Maston given this unexpected news to the world? Was this thedenouement of this great enterprise?

But the day passed without incident. The terrestrialmidnight arrived. The 8th of December was beginning.One hour more, and the point of equal attraction wouldbe reached. What speed would then animate the projectile?They could not estimate it. But no error could vitiateBarbicane's calculations. At one in the morning this speedought to be and would be nil.

Besides, another phenomenon would mark the projectile'sstopping-point on the neutral line. At that spot the twoattractions, lunar and terrestrial, would be annulled.Objects would "weigh" no more. This singular fact, which hadsurprised Barbicane and his companions so much in going, wouldbe repeated on their return under the very same conditions.At this precise moment they must act.

Already the projectile's conical top was sensibly turned towardthe lunar disc, presented in such a way as to utilize the wholeof the recoil produced by the pressure of the rocket apparatus.The chances were in favor of the travelers. If its speed wasutterly annulled on this dead point, a decided movement towardthe moon would suffice, however slight, to determine its fall.

"Five minutes to one," said Nicholl.

"All is ready," replied Michel Ardan, directing a lighted matchto the flame of the gas.

"Wait!" said Barbicane, holding his chronometer in his hand.

At that moment weight had no effect. The travelers felt inthemselves the entire disappearance of it. They were very nearthe neutral point, if they did not touch it.

"One o'clock," said Barbicane.

Michel Ardan applied the lighted match to a train incommunication with the rockets. No detonation was heard inthe inside, for there was no air. But, through the scuttles,Barbicane saw a prolonged smoke, the flames of which wereimmediately extinguished.

The projectile sustained a certain shock, which was sensiblyfelt in the interior.

The three friends looked and listened without speaking, andscarcely breathing. One might have heard the beating of theirhearts amid this perfect silence.

"Are we falling?" asked Michel Ardan, at length.

"No," said Nicholl, "since the bottom of the projectile is notturning to the lunar disc!"

At this moment, Barbicane, quitting his scuttle, turned to histwo companions. He was frightfully pale, his forehead wrinkled,and his lips contracted.

"We are falling!" said he.

"Ah!" cried Michel Ardan, "on to the moon?"

"On to the earth!"

"The devil!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, adding philosophically,"well, when we came into this projectile we were very doubtfulas to the ease with which we should get out of it!"

And now this fearful fall had begun. The speed retained hadborne the projectile beyond the dead point. The explosion ofthe rockets could not divert its course. This speed in goinghad carried it over the neutral line, and in returning had donethe same thing. The laws of physics condemned it to passthrough every point which it had already gone through. It wasa terrible fall, from a height of 160,000 miles, and no springsto break it. According to the laws of gunnery, the projectilemust strike the earth with a speed equal to that with which itleft the mouth of the Columbiad, a speed of 16,000 yards in thelast second.

But to give some figures of comparison, it has been reckonedthat an object thrown from the top of the towers of Notre Dame,the height of which is only 200 feet, will arrive on thepavement at a speed of 240 miles per hour. Here the projectilemust strike the earth with a speed of 115,200 miles per hour.

"We are lost!" said Michel coolly.

"Very well! if we die," answered Barbicane, with a sort ofreligious enthusiasm, "the results of our travels will bemagnificently spread. It is His own secret that God willtell us! In the other life the soul will want to know nothing,either of machines or engines! It will be identified witheternal wisdom!"

"In fact," interrupted Michel Ardan, "the whole of the otherworld may well console us for the loss of that inferior orbcalled the moon!"

Barbicane crossed his arms on his breast, with a motion ofsublime resignation, saying at the same time:

"The will of heaven be done!"

CHAPTER XX

THE SOUNDINGS OF THE SUSQUEHANNA

Well, lieutenant, and our soundings?"

"I think, sir, that the operation is nearing its completion,"replied Lieutenant Bronsfield. "But who would have thought offinding such a depth so near in shore, and only 200 miles fromthe American coast?"

"Certainly, Bronsfield, there is a great depression," saidCaptain Blomsberry. "In this spot there is a submarine valleyworn by Humboldt's current, which skirts the coast of America asfar as the Straits of Magellan."

"These great depths," continued the lieutenant, "are notfavorable for laying telegraphic cables. A level bottom, likethat supporting the American cable between Valentia andNewfoundland, is much better."

"I agree with you, Bronsfield. With your permission,lieutenant, where are we now?"

"Sir, at this moment we have 3,508 fathoms of line out, and theball which draws the sounding lead has not yet touched thebottom; for if so, it would have come up of itself."

"Brook's apparatus is very ingenious," said Captain Blomsberry;"it gives us very exact soundings."

"Touch!" cried at this moment one of the men at the forewheel,who was superintending the operation.

The captain and the lieutenant mounted the quarterdeck.

"What depth have we?" asked the captain.

"Three thousand six hundred and twenty-seven fathoms," repliedthe lieutenant, entering it in his notebook.

"Well, Bronsfield," said the captain, "I will take downthe result. Now haul in the sounding line. It will be thework of some hours. In that time the engineer can light thefurnaces, and we shall be ready to start as soon as youhave finished. It is ten o'clock, and with your permission,lieutenant, I will turn in."

"Do so, sir; do so!" replied the lieutenant obligingly.

The captain of the Susquehanna, as brave a man as need be, andthe humble servant of his officers, returned to his cabin, tooka brandy-grog, which earned for the steward no end of praise,and turned in, not without having complimented his servant uponhis making beds, and slept a peaceful sleep.

It was then ten at night. The eleventh day of the month ofDecember was drawing to a close in a magnificent night.

The Susquehanna, a corvette of 500 horse-power, of the UnitedStates navy, was occupied in taking soundings in the PacificOcean about 200 miles off the American coast, following thatlong peninsula which stretches down the coast of Mexico.

The wind had dropped by degrees. There was no disturbance inthe air. The pennant hung motionless from the maintop-gallant-mast truck.

Captain Jonathan Blomsberry (cousin-german of ColonelBlomsberry, one of the most ardent supporters of the Gun Club,who had married an aunt of the captain and daughter of anhonorable Kentucky merchant)-- Captain Blomsberry could not havewished for finer weather in which to bring to a close hisdelicate operations of sounding. His corvette had not even feltthe great tempest, which by sweeping away the groups of cloudson the Rocky Mountains, had allowed them to observe the courseof the famous projectile.

Everything went well, and with all the fervor of a Presbyterian,he did not forget to thank heaven for it. The series ofsoundings taken by the Susquehanna, had for its aim the findingof a favorable spot for the laying of a submarine cable toconnect the Hawaiian Islands with the coast of America.

It was a great undertaking, due to the instigation of apowerful company. Its managing director, the intelligent CyrusField, purposed even covering all the islands of Oceanica witha vast electrical network, an immense enterprise, and one worthyof American genius.

To the corvette Susquehanna had been confided the firstoperations of sounding. It was on the night of the 11th-12th ofDecember, she was in exactly 27@ 7' north latitude, and 41@ 37'west longitude, on the meridian of Washington.

The moon, then in her last quarter, was beginning to rise abovethe horizon.

After the departure of Captain Blomsberry, the lieutenant andsome officers were standing together on the poop. On theappearance of the moon, their thoughts turned to that orb whichthe eyes of a whole hemisphere were contemplating. The bestnaval glasses could not have discovered the projectile wanderingaround its hemisphere, and yet all were pointed toward thatbrilliant disc which millions of eyes were looking at at thesame moment.

"They have been gone ten days," said Lieutenant Bronsfieldat last. "What has become of them?"

"They have arrived, lieutenant," exclaimed a young midshipman,"and they are doing what all travelers do when they arrive in anew country, taking a walk!"

"But," continued another officer, "their arrival cannotbe doubted. The projectile was to reach the moon when fullon the 5th at midnight. We are now at the 11th of December, whichmakes six days. And in six times twenty-four hours, withoutdarkness, one would have time to settle comfortably. I fancy Isee my brave countrymen encamped at the bottom of some valley,on the borders of a Selenite stream, near a projectile half-buriedby its fall amid volcanic rubbish, Captain Nicholl beginning hisleveling operations, President Barbicane writing out his notes,and Michel Ardan embalming the lunar solitudes with the perfumeof his----"

"Yes! it must be so, it is so!" exclaimed the young midshipman,worked up to a pitch of enthusiasm by this ideal description ofhis superior officer.

"I should like to believe it," replied the lieutenant, who wasquite unmoved. "Unfortunately direct news from the lunar worldis still wanting."

"No letters!" continued the young man quickly. "The postaladministration has something to see to there."

"Might it not be the telegraphic service that is at fault?"asked one of the officers ironically.

"Not necessarily," replied the midshipman, not at all confused."But it is very easy to set up a graphic communication withthe earth."

"And how?"

"By means of the telescope at Long's Peak. You know it bringsthe moon to within four miles of the Rocky Mountains, and thatit shows objects on its surface of only nine feet in diameter.Very well; let our industrious friends construct a giantalphabet; let them write words three fathoms long, and sentencesthree miles long, and then they can send us news of themselves."

The young midshipman, who had a certain amount of imagination,was loudly applauded; Lieutenant Bronsfield allowing that theidea was possible, but observing that if by these means theycould receive news from the lunar world they could not send anyfrom the terrestrial, unless the Selenites had instruments fitfor taking distant observations at their disposal.

"Evidently," said one of the officers; "but what has become ofthe travelers? what they have done, what they have seen, thatabove all must interest us. Besides, if the experiment hassucceeded (which I do not doubt), they will try it again.The Columbiad is still sunk in the soil of Florida. It is nowonly a question of powder and shot; and every time the moon isat her zenith a cargo of visitors may be sent to her."

"Oh! volunteers will not be wanting," answered Bronsfield; "andif it were allowed, half of the earth's inhabitants wouldemigrate to the moon!"

This conversation between the officers of the Susquehanna waskept up until nearly one in the morning. We cannot say whatblundering systems were broached, what inconsistent theoriesadvanced by these bold spirits. Since Barbicane's attempt,nothing seemed impossible to the Americans. They had alreadydesigned an expedition, not only of savants, but of a wholecolony toward the Selenite borders, and a complete army,consisting of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, to conquer thelunar world.

At one in the morning, the hauling in of the sounding-line wasnot yet completed; 1,670 fathoms were still out, which wouldentail some hours' work. According to the commander's orders,the fires had been lighted, and steam was being got up.The Susquehanna could have started that very instant.

At that moment (it was seventeen minutes past one in themorning) Lieutenant Bronsfield was preparing to leave the watchand return to his cabin, when his attention was attracted by adistant hissing noise. His comrades and himself first thoughtthat this hissing was caused by the letting off of steam; butlifting their heads, they found that the noise was produced inthe highest regions of the air. They had not time to questioneach other before the hissing became frightfully intense, andsuddenly there appeared to their dazzled eyes an enormousmeteor, ignited by the rapidity of its course and its frictionthrough the atmospheric strata.

This fiery mass grew larger to their eyes, and fell, withthe noise of thunder, upon the bowsprit, which it smashed closeto the stem, and buried itself in the waves with a deafening roar!

A few feet nearer, and the Susquehanna would have foundered withall on board!

And the midshipman, making himself as it were the echo of thebody, cried, "Commander, it is `they' come back again!"

CHAPTER XXI

J. T. MASTON RECALLED

"It is `they' come back again!" the young midshipman had said,and every one had understood him. No one doubted but that themeteor was the projectile of the Gun Club. As to the travelerswhich it enclosed, opinions were divided regarding their fate.

"They are dead!" said one.

"They are alive!" said another; "the crater is deep, and theshock was deadened."

"But they must have wanted air," continued a third speaker;"they must have died of suffocation."

"Burned!" replied a fourth; "the projectile was nothing but anincandescent mass as it crossed the atmosphere."

"What does it matter!" they exclaimed unanimously; "living ordead, we must pull them out!"

But Captain Blomsberry had assembled his officers, and "withtheir permission," was holding a council. They must decide uponsomething to be done immediately. The more hasty ones were forfishing up the projectile. A difficult operation, though not animpossible one. But the corvette had no proper machinery, whichmust be both fixed and powerful; so it was resolved that theyshould put in at the nearest port, and give information to theGun Club of the projectile's fall.

This determination was unanimous. The choice of the port hadto be discussed. The neighboring coast had no anchorage on27@ latitude. Higher up, above the peninsula of Monterey, standsthe important town from which it takes its name; but, seated onthe borders of a perfect desert, it was not connected with theinterior by a network of telegraphic wires, and electricityalone could spread these important news fast enough.

Some degrees above opened the bay of San Francisco. Through thecapital of the gold country communication would be easy with theheart of the Union. And in less than two days the Susquehanna,by putting on high pressure, could arrive in that port. She musttherefore start at once.

The fires were made up; they could set off immediately.Two thousand fathoms of line were still out, which CaptainBlomsberry, not wishing to lose precious time in hauling in,resolved to cut.

"we will fasten the end to a buoy," said he, "and that buoy willshow us the exact spot where the projectile fell."

"Well, Mr. Bronsfield," replied the captain, "now, with yourpermission, we will have the line cut."

A strong buoy, strengthened by a couple of spars, was throwninto the ocean. The end of the rope was carefully lashed to it;and, left solely to the rise and fall of the billows, the buoywould not sensibly deviate from the spot.

At this moment the engineer sent to inform the captain thatsteam was up and they could start, for which agreeablecommunication the captain thanked him. The course was thengiven north-northeast, and the corvette, wearing, steered atfull steam direct for San Francisco. It was three in the morning.

Four hundred and fifty miles to cross; it was nothing for a goodvessel like the Susquehanna. In thirty-six hours she had coveredthat distance; and on the 14th of December, at twenty-sevenminutes past one at night, she entered the bay of San Francisco.

At the sight of a ship of the national navy arriving at full speed,with her bowsprit broken, public curiosity was greatly roused.A dense crowd soon assembled on the quay, waiting for themto disembark.

After casting anchor, Captain Blomsberry and LieutenantBronsfield entered an eight-pared cutter, which soon broughtthem to land.

They jumped on to the quay.

"The telegraph?" they asked, without answering one of thethousand questions addressed to them.

The officer of the port conducted them to the telegraph officethrough a concourse of spectators. Blomsberry and Bronsfieldentered, while the crowd crushed each other at the door.

Some minutes later a fourfold telegram was sent out--the firstto the Naval Secretary at Washington; the second to thevice-president of the Gun Club, Baltimore; the third to the Hon.J. T. Maston, Long's Peak, Rocky Mountains; and the fourth tothe sub-director of the Cambridge Observatory, Massachusetts.

It was worded as follows:

In 20@ 7' north latitude, and 41@ 37' west longitude, on the12th of December, at seventeen minutes past one in the morning,the projectile of the Columbiad fell into the Pacific.Send instructions.-- BLOMSBERRY, Commander Susquehanna.

Five minutes afterward the whole town of San Francisco learnedthe news. Before six in the evening the different States of theUnion had heard the great catastrophe; and after midnight, bythe cable, the whole of Europe knew the result of the greatAmerican experiment. We will not attempt to picture the effectproduced on the entire world by that unexpected denouement.

On receipt of the telegram the Naval Secretary telegraphed tothe Susquehanna to wait in the bay of San Francisco withoutextinguishing her fires. Day and night she must be readyto put to sea.

The Cambridge observatory called a special meeting; and, withthat composure which distinguishes learned bodies in general,peacefully discussed the scientific bearings of the question.At the Gun Club there was an explosion. All the gunnerswere assembled. Vice-President the Hon. Wilcome was in theact of reading the premature dispatch, in which J. T. Mastonand Belfast announced that the projectile had just been seen inthe gigantic reflector of Long's Peak, and also that it was heldby lunar attraction, and was playing the part of under satelliteto the lunar world.

We know the truth on that point.

But on the arrival of Blomsberry's dispatch, so decidelycontradicting J. T. Maston's telegram, two parties were formedin the bosom of the Gun Club. On one side were those whoadmitted the fall of the projectile, and consequently the returnof the travelers; on the other, those who believed in theobservations of Long's Peak, concluded that the commander of theSusquehanna had made a mistake. To the latter the pretendedprojectile was nothing but a meteor! nothing but a meteor, ashooting globe, which in its fall had smashed the bows ofthe corvette. It was difficult to answer this argument, forthe speed with which it was animated must have made observationvery difficult. The commander of the Susquehanna and herofficers might have made a mistake in all good faith; one argumenthowever, was in their favor, namely, that if the projectile hadfallen on the earth, its place of meeting with the terrestrialglobe could only take place on this 27@ north latitude, and(taking into consideration the time that had elapsed, and therotary motion of the earth) between the 41@ and the 42@ ofwest longitude. In any case, it was decided in the Gun Clubthat Blomsberry brothers, Bilsby, and Major Elphinstone shouldgo straight to San Francisco, and consult as to the means ofraising the projectile from the depths of the ocean.

These devoted men set off at once; and the railroad, which willsoon cross the whole of Central America, took them as far as St.Louis, where the swift mail-coaches awaited them. Almost at thesame moment in which the Secretary of Marine, the vice-presidentof the Gun Club, and the sub-director of the Observatory receivedthe dispatch from San Francisco, the Honorable J. T. Maston wasundergoing the greatest excitement he had ever experienced in hislife, an excitement which even the bursting of his pet gun, whichhad more than once nearly cost him his life, had not caused him.We may remember that the secretary of the Gun Club had startedsoon after the projectile (and almost as quickly) for the stationon Long's Peak, in the Rocky Mountains, J. Belfast, director of theCambridge Observatory, accompanying him. Arrived there, the twofriends had installed themselves at once, never quitting thesummit of their enormous telescope. We know that this giganticinstrument had been set up according to the reflecting system,called by the English "front view." This arrangement subjectedall objects to but one reflection, making the view consequentlymuch clearer; the result was that, when they were takingobservation, J. T. Maston and Belfast were placed in the upperpart of the instrument and not in the lower, which they reachedby a circular staircase, a masterpiece of lightness, while belowthem opened a metal well terminated by the metallic mirror,which measured two hundred and eighty feet in depth.

It was on a narrow platform placed above the telescope that thetwo savants passed their existence, execrating the day which hidthe moon from their eyes, and the clouds which obstinatelyveiled her during the night.

What, then, was their delight when, after some days of waiting,on the night of the 5th of December, they saw the vehicle whichwas bearing their friends into space! To this delight succeededa great deception, when, trusting to a cursory observation, theylaunched their first telegram to the world, erroneouslyaffirming that the projectile had become a satellite of themoon, gravitating in an immutable orbit.

From that moment it had never shown itself to their eyes-- adisappearance all the more easily explained, as it was thenpassing behind the moon's invisible disc; but when it was timefor it to reappear on the visible disc, one may imagine theimpatience of the fuming J. T. Maston and his not lessimpatient companion. Each minute of the night they thoughtthey saw the projectile once more, and they did not see it.Hence constant discussions and violent disputes between them,Belfast affirming that the projectile could not be seen, J. T.Maston maintaining that "it had put his eyes out."

And at these moments, when contradictions rained like hail, thewell-known irritability of the secretary of the Gun Clubconstituted a permanent danger for the Honorable Belfast.The existence of these two together would soon have becomeimpossible; but an unforseen event cut short theireverlasting discussions.

During the night, from the 14th to the 15th of December, the twoirreconcilable friends were busy observing the lunar disc, J. T.Maston abusing the learned Belfast as usual, who was by hisside; the secretary of the Gun Club maintaining for thethousandth time that he had just seen the projectile, and addingthat he could see Michel Ardan's face looking through one of thescuttles, at the same time enforcing his argument by a series ofgestures which his formidable hook rendered very unpleasant.

At this moment Belfast's servant appeared on the platform (itwas ten at night) and gave him a dispatch. It was the commanderof the Susquehanna's telegram.

Belfast tore the envelope and read, and uttered a cry.

"What!" said J. T. Maston.

"The projectile!"

"Well!"

"Has fallen to the earth!"

Another cry, this time a perfect howl, answered him. He turnedtoward J. T. Maston. The unfortunate man, imprudently leaningover the metal tube, had disappeared in the immense telescope.A fall of two hundred and eighty feet! Belfast, dismayed,rushed to the orifice of the reflector.

He breathed. J. T. Maston, caught by his metal hook, washolding on by one of the rings which bound the telescopetogether, uttering fearful cries.

Belfast called. Help was brought, tackle was let down, and theyhoisted up, not without some trouble, the imprudent secretary ofthe Gun Club.

He reappeared at the upper orifice without hurt.

"Ah!" said he, "if I had broken the mirror?"

"You would have paid for it," replied Belfast severely.

"And that cursed projectile has fallen?" asked J. T. Maston.

"Into the Pacific!"

"Let us go!"

A quarter of an hour after the two savants were descending thedeclivity of the Rocky Mountains; and two days after, at thesame time as their friends of the Gun Club, they arrived at SanFrancisco, having killed five horses on the road.

Elphinstone, the brothers Blomsberry, and Bilsby rushed towardthem on their arrival.

The spot where the projectile sank under the waves was exactlyknown; but the machinery to grasp it and bring it to the surfaceof the ocean was still wanting. It must first be invented,then made. American engineers could not be troubled withsuch trifles. The grappling-irons once fixed, by their helpthey were sure to raise it in spite of its weight, which waslessened by the density of the liquid in which it was plunged.

But fishing-up the projectile was not the only thing to be thought of.They must act promptly in the interest of the travelers. No onedoubted that they were still living.

"Yes," repeated J. T. Maston incessantly, whose confidencegained over everybody, "our friends are clever people, and theycannot have fallen like simpletons. They are alive, quite alive;but we must make haste if we wish to find them so. Food andwater do not trouble me; they have enough for a long while.But air, air, that is what they will soon want; so quick, quick!"

And they did go quick. They fitted up the Susquehanna for hernew destination. Her powerful machinery was brought to bearupon the hauling-chains. The aluminum projectile only weighed19,250 pounds, a weight very inferior to that of the transatlanticcable which had been drawn up under similar conditions. The onlydifficulty was in fishing up a cylindro-conical projectile, thewalls of which were so smooth as to offer no hold for the hooks.On that account Engineer Murchison hastened to San Francisco,and had some enormous grappling-irons fixed on an automaticsystem, which would never let the projectile go if it oncesucceeded in seizing it in its powerful claws. Diving-dresseswere also prepared, which through this impervious covering allowedthe divers to observe the bottom of the sea. He also had put onboard an apparatus of compressed air very cleverly designed.There were perfect chambers pierced with scuttles, which, withwater let into certain compartments, could draw it down intogreat depths. These apparatuses were at San Francisco, wherethey had been used in the construction of a submarine breakwater;and very fortunately it was so, for there was no time toconstruct any. But in spite of the perfection of the machinery,in spite of the ingenuity of the savants entrusted with the useof them, the success of the operation was far from being certain.How great were the chances against them, the projectile being20,000 feet under the water! And if even it was brought to thesurface, how would the travelers have borne the terrible shockwhich 20,000 feet of water had perhaps not sufficiently broken?At any rate they must act quickly. J. T. Maston hurried theworkmen day and night. He was ready to don the diving-dresshimself, or try the air apparatus, in order to reconnoiter thesituation of his courageous friends.

But in spite of all the diligence displayed in preparing thedifferent engines, in spite of the considerable sum placed atthe disposal of the Gun Club by the Government of the Union,five long days (five centuries!) elapsed before the preparationswere complete. During this time public opinion was excited tothe highest pitch. Telegrams were exchanged incessantlythroughout the entire world by means of wires and electric cables.The saving of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan was aninternational affair. Every one who had subscribed to the GunClub was directly interested in the welfare of the travelers.

At length the hauling-chains, the air-chambers, and theautomatic grappling-irons were put on board. J. T. Maston,Engineer Murchison, and the delegates of the Gun Club, werealready in their cabins. They had but to start, which they didon the 21st of December, at eight o'clock at night, the corvettemeeting with a beautiful sea, a northeasterly wind, and rathersharp cold. The whole population of San Francisco was gatheredon the quay, greatly excited but silent, reserving their hurrahsfor the return. Steam was fully up, and the screw of theSusquehanna carried them briskly out of the bay.

It is needless to relate the conversations on board betweenthe officers, sailors, and passengers. All these men had butone thought. All these hearts beat under the same emotion.While they were hastening to help them, what were Barbicane andhis companions doing? What had become of them? Were they able toattempt any bold maneuver to regain their liberty? None could say.The truth is that every attempt must have failed! Immersed nearlyfour miles under the ocean, this metal prison defied every effortof its prisoners.

On the 23rd inst., at eight in the morning, after a rapidpassage, the Susquehanna was due at the fatal spot. They mustwait till twelve to take the reckoning exactly. The buoyto which the sounding line had been lashed had not yetbeen recognized.

At twelve, Captain Blomsberry, assisted by his officers whosuperintended the observations, took the reckoning in thepresence of the delegates of the Gun Club. Then there was amoment of anxiety. Her position decided, the Susquehanna wasfound to be some minutes westward of the spot where theprojectile had disappeared beneath the waves.

The ship's course was then changed so as to reach this exact point.

At forty-seven minutes past twelve they reached the buoy; it wasin perfect condition, and must have shifted but little.

"At last!" exclaimed J. T. Maston.

"Shall we begin?" asked Captain Blomsberry.

"Without losing a second."

Every precaution was taken to keep the corvette almostcompletely motionless. Before trying to seize the projectile,Engineer Murchison wanted to find its exact position at thebottom of the ocean. The submarine apparatus destined for thisexpedition was supplied with air. The working of these engineswas not without danger, for at 20,000 feet below the surface ofthe water, and under such great pressure, they were exposed tofracture, the consequences of which would be dreadful.

J. T. Maston, the brothers Blomsberry, and Engineer Murchison,without heeding these dangers, took their places in theair-chamber. The commander, posted on his bridge, superintendedthe operation, ready to stop or haul in the chains on theslightest signal. The screw had been shipped, and the wholepower of the machinery collected on the capstan would havequickly drawn the apparatus on board. The descent began attwenty-five minutes past one at night, and the chamber,drawn under by the reservoirs full of water, disappearedfrom the surface of the ocean.

The emotion of the officers and sailors on board was nowdivided between the prisoners in the projectile and theprisoners in the submarine apparatus. As to the latter, theyforgot themselves, and, glued to the windows of the scuttles,attentively watched the liquid mass through which they were passing.

The descent was rapid. At seventeen minutes past two, J. T.Maston and his companions had reached the bottom of the Pacific;but they saw nothing but an arid desert, no longer animated byeither fauna or flora. By the light of their lamps, furnishedwith powerful reflectors, they could see the dark beds of theocean for a considerable extent of view, but the projectile wasnowhere to be seen.

The impatience of these bold divers cannot be described, andhaving an electrical communication with the corvette, they madea signal already agreed upon, and for the space of a mile theSusquehanna moved their chamber along some yards above the bottom.

Thus they explored the whole submarine plain, deceived at everyturn by optical illusions which almost broke their hearts.Here a rock, there a projection from the ground, seemed to bethe much-sought-for projectile; but their mistake was soondiscovered, and then they were in despair.

"But where are they? where are they?" cried J. T. Maston. And thepoor man called loudly upon Nicholl, Barbicane, and Michel Ardan,as if his unfortunate friends could either hear or answer himthrough such an impenetrable medium! The search continued underthese conditions until the vitiated air compelled the divers to ascend.

The hauling in began about six in the evening, and was not endedbefore midnight.

"To-morrow," said J. T. Maston, as he set foot on the bridge ofthe corvette.

"Yes," answered Captain Blomsberry.

"And on another spot?"

"Yes."

J. T. Maston did not doubt of their final success, but hiscompanions, no longer upheld by the excitement of the firsthours, understood all the difficulty of the enterprise.What seemed easy at San Francisco, seemed here in the wideocean almost impossible. The chances of success diminished inrapid proportion; and it was from chance alone that the meetingwith the projectile might be expected.

The next day, the 24th, in spite of the fatigue of the previousday, the operation was renewed. The corvette advanced someminutes to westward, and the apparatus, provided with air, borethe same explorers to the depths of the ocean.

The whole day passed in fruitless research; the bed of the seawas a desert. The 25th brought no other result, nor the 26th.